The year is 1989.Revolutions are sweeping through the nations of the Eastern Bloc. Communism is unraveling. And nobody feels this unraveling more piquantly than Yuri Balodis—a fifteen-year-old first-generation American living with his Latvian-immigrant parents in Milwaukee’s Third Ward.It’s a turbulent time. And when Yuri falls in love with Hannah Graham—the daring daughter of a prominent local socialist—chaos ensues. Within weeks, Yuri is ensnared by both Hannah and socialism. He joins the staff of the Socialist Worker. He starts quoting Lenin and Marx indiscriminately.His parents, of course, are horrified and deeply saddened. They try to educate him, to show him why, in their opinion, communism has ruined so many lives. But Yuri is stubborn. And his ideological betrayal will have more serious consequences than breaking his parents’ hearts.Red Weather is by turns funny and bittersweet, tinged with a rueful comic sense that will instantly remind you of the absurd complications of love. Pauls Toutonghi’s stunning debut novel is at once reminiscent of Michael Chabon’s The Mysteries of Pittsburgh and Khaled Hosseini’s The Kite Runner.From the Hardcover edition.

    Because of Ford's influence, a journey begins that encompasses quirky scholars, bickering university faculty, the Renaissance giant Sir Walter Raleigh and, of course, ingenious plays.

    As funny and entertaining as it is captivating and heartrending, A Gay and Melancholy Sound is a shattering depiction of modern disconnection and the tragic consequences of a life bereft of love.Joshua Bland has lived the kind of life many would define as extraordinary. Born in a small Iowa town to a controlling, delusional mother who had always wanted a daughter rather than a son, her anger at him colors his life. His father, a compassionate drinker incapable of dealing with Joshua's mother, walks out on his wife and son, leaving a vacuum in the family that is damagingly filled by his tutor-cum-stepfather Petrarch Pavan, scion of a wealthy New York family who has secrets of his own. Playing on Joshua's brilliance, Petrarch trains him to win a nationwide knowledge competition, but Joshua's disappointing results in the finals are met with anger and disbelief by both his mother and stepfather. If Petrarch was unsuccessful in teaching Joshua the information he needed to win the contest, he had more success in instilling Joshua with the cynicism, self-doubt, and self-hatred that fill his own soul.Enlisting in the army during World War II, he serves first as an infantryman, where his irreverent letters home turn him into a best-selling author. Then, as a paratrooper, he meets the physical challenges he thought were beyond his reach and helps free the concentration camps before being wounded as the Allied forces free Buchenwald. Back home after the war, he becomes a wildly successful producer — and all of this by the age of thirty-seven. But when his production company flounders amid critical and financial woes, the reality of who he is becomes perfectly, depressingly clear: he has had a lifetime of extraordinary experiences — and no emotional connection to any of it.

    At thirty- one, after early loss and romantic disappointment, she has found refuge in the neat solutions of geometry and algebra. But when her favorite student, Ann, is mysteriously injured and is confined indoors while she recovers, Esker begins home-tutoring the precocious teenager. Soon, much to her chagrin, Esker finds herself falling edgily, haltingly in love with Ann’s father. As Leah Hager Cohen uses this unlikely triangle to chart the complexities of affection, each of her endearing characters draws urgently closer to making a decision that will have irrevocable effects on the others. Quirky, moving, and exquisitely written, Heart, You Bully, You Punk will resonate with anyone who has struggled with an unruly heart.

    His younger brother searches for him and in the process finds himself.

    Given a year to prove he can make rain during Florida’s economic drought, David rolls up his sleeves and lands the client of his dreams—Frank O'Reilly, a real estate developer embroiled in dozens of lawsuits and hell-bent on turning a profit during the recession. Little does David know that Frank's company is involved in a murderous plot to cover up years of mortgage fraud in the Sunshine State. As David prepares for a trial that will make or break his career, he discovers that a secret investor in Frank’s company is responsible for murder and will continue killing to hide the truth. The only thing David can’t figure out is whether Frank is the conspiracy’s victim or its mastermind. To answer that question, David must risk far more than partnership as he unravels one dark secret after another about his client, his law firm, and, ultimately, himself.

    "Somewhere in the first five pages of HER OWN PLACE the glow begins....And you begin to glow becuase it just feels so good."THE BOSTON GLOBEThis is Mae Lee Barnes, story--from girlhood to womanhood to motherhood--and all stops in between, living the troubled, joyous, and indomitable life of a black matriarch during a time of change that will alter her life and her family's forever....

    For an enslaved mother, daughter, and grandmother, Montpelier plantation in Virginia is a living hell- and the proprietor, at least initially, is none other than President James Madison. A Long Way from Home opens during Madison's lifetime, when Susie and her daughter Clara serve the First Couple as house slaves. Yet even this regime seems civilized compared to the havoc unleashed by Madison's brutal stepson. As Clara fends off (and ultimately succumbs to) the sexual advances of one master after another, the author conjures up the entire world of the "peculiar institution."It is Susie's granddaughter and namesake, Susan, who first leaves Montpelier. Not, of course, voluntarily: she is sold to a family living in Richmond. Chained in the back of a departing wagon, she "clenched her teeth and stared at the sky. How dare the day be so clear, so beautiful, on this, the worst day of her life." But as the Civil War erupts, Susan ponders the possibility of a more joyous liberation. As Briscoe makes clear, the prospect elicited a complex blend of emotions from many slaves- Susan, for example, has been lulled into considering herself a part (if a diminished part) of her white master's family. A Long Way from Home does occasionally fall back on the pat formulas of the television miniseries, and Briscoe doesn't manage to quite ignite Susan's conflicted feelings about bondage and freedom. But Susan's postwar travails do convey the reality that Reconstruction was not only a political process but also a painfully personal one. --Katherine Anderson

    It is 1947, and Israel Levis, a Cuban composer whose life had once been a dream of music, love, and sadness, returns to Cuba after being mistakenly imprisoned during the Nazi occupation of France.When Levis arrives back in Habana, his mind returns to an unrequited romance with the alluring Rita Valladares, a singer for whom Levis had written his most famous song, "Rosas Puras." This 1928 composition became the most famous rumba in the world and changed American and European tastes in music and dance forever.A love story—of art, family, and country—A Simple Habana Melody is a virtuoso performance from one of our most important writers.

    This luminous journey is marked by memories of his lonely childhood, secrets of his doomed young mother, and his passion for a woman who is as unreachable as the stars.

    Now the stories alone are available for the first time in trade paperback.

    They saw. They came and took what they saw.The Esker sisters are shoppers. Loving, caring, driven, merciless shoppers. Ida never "passes a store without slipping in and buying something to give away." Pola, who only buys in bulk, would have been good in foreign affairs: "If a nation acted up, Aunt Pola would buy it." And Hedy, dearest of them all, proved the whole thing was genetic. Or maybe environmental. Either way, she passed the bug of galloping consumption onto her son.Her son is Joe Reckler. Twenty-six. Yale grad. No job. No ties. Nothing to keep him from joining Mother and the aunts on a week-long shopping extravaganza disguised as a New England Autumn Leaves Tour that takes them everywhere from Bloomingdale's to L. L. Bean. But soon Joe notices a difference between himself and his mega-shopping mentors. You see, he figures you're supposed to pay.

    His failed plan, a mere footnote in Jewish-American history, is the starting point for Ben Katchor's brilliantly imagined epic that unfolds on the streets of New York a few years later.A disgraced kosher slaughterer, an importer of religious articles and women's hosiery, a pilgrim peddling soil from the Holy Land, a latter-day Kabbalist, a man with plans to carbonate Lake Erie--these are just some of the characters who move through Katchor's universe, their lives interwoven in a common struggle to settle into the New World even as it erupts into a financial frenzy that could as easily leave them bankrupt as carry them into the future.

    For the next quarter century, the “Friendly Neighbor” station produces a dazzling array of shows and stars, including Leo LaValley, Dad Benson, Wingo Beals, Slim Graves and Little Buddy, chain-smoking child star Marjery Moore, and blind baseball announcer Buck Steller.Francis With, a shy young man from North Dakota, entranced by radio, gets into WLT through his uncle Art and quickly becomes the Soderbjerg's right hand. Soon Francis is a budding announcer adored by Lily Dale, the crippled nightingale of WLT kept hidden from her fans, whose firing contributes to the downfall of the station. And then comes television.

    Ken Kesey and friends transformed an old yellow school bus into a psychedelic schooner and set off on a coast-to-coast trip. Here is the story of the legendary bus trip, as seen through the eyes of the head Prankster, Ken Kesey. Illustrated.